Month: September 2016

With the “long conference” before the beginning of the 2016 Supreme Court Term complete the Court has granted what could be the last set of cases before the Justices start hearing oral arguments next Tuesday (Oct. 4). The Court has two months of hearings scheduled with other cases still lacking oral argument dates. The Court’s…

Since the beginning of the 2010 Supreme Court Term, 82 cases have been decided by one vote (80 by 5-4 votes and 2 by 4-3 votes. Both of the 4-3 votes were during the 2015 Term (see this post for more information on those cases)). These include orally argued cases and non-orally argued decisions where…

With the Supreme Court’s 2016 Term around the corner, there is nowhere near a full slate of cases for the Justices to hear. While the October and November hearing schedules were released and there are a handful of other granted cases without oral argument dates on the calendar, there are currently only approximately 29 cases (see SCOTUSBlog’s list…

Even with the Supreme Court in summer recess the Justices have ruled on a slew of challenges to states’ laws affecting voting rights (for example) and regulations (for example). These decisions often have ideological dimensions as is apparent from the alignment of dissenting coalitions. With eight rather than the typical nine Justices currently sitting on the…

The Supreme Court decides well fewer than 100 orally argued cases each Term. This is only a fraction of the number of cases the Supreme Court heard in the past. There is concern that Court will hear even fewer cases during the 2016 Term due to the ongoing Supreme Court vacancy. The dynamics of these cases…

Several of the Justices were on speaking tours in recent weeks moving through academic venues and discussing the contours of the current Court in somewhat guarded tones (which is not surprising given the general tenor or Supreme Court Justices outside of the Court and based on the backlash against Justice Ginsburg’s incisive comments concerning Presidential…

Perusing through some data for another post, I came across the age at death of all deceased Supreme Court nominees (those confirmed and not excluding Justice Scalia). The graph on the left shows all of the ages at death over time and the graph on the right shows the life expectancy trend based on the death…

The Supreme Court writes full decisions in around 70 orally argued cases every term. The majority of these cases were previously heard by federal courts of appeals. Each of the twelve federal appeals circuits, however, decides hundreds of cases every year, with only a tiny percentage going to the Supreme Court for further review. Appeals…

While most of the Supreme Court’s notable matters include cases with far reaching implications that are decided with written decisions, some of the most important decisions the Court makes have to do with emergency matters that are time-sensitive. The Court examines a number of stay applications each year, which are typically dominated by capital cases….